PORT ST. LUCIE — City Hall critic Dave Mittler is demanding City Councilwoman Michelle Berger publicly apologize for calling him and his former neighbor, John Methvin, “professional anarchists” during a Sept. 28 City Council meeting.

The issue has Mayor Patricia Christensen reassessing how City Council meetings are conducted.

Mittler’s call for an apology comes after Methvin called the City Council office about two weeks ago demanding Berger apologize for making the remark or he would show up at the next council meeting with “guns loaded,” a statement he later said was a figure of speech.
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PORT ST. LUCIE — The City Council voted 4-1 at its Monday night meeting to move forward with making Midway Road the dividing line between the city and Fort Pierce.

But officials have just begun ironing out the details regarding utilities and annexations in the joint planning agreement.

The council agreed to assign Midway Road from the Indian River Lagoon to the St. Lucie County Fairgrounds as the boundary. Councilwoman Michelle Berger had requested at the council’s Oct. 19 meeting a follow-up discussion about the joint planning agreement for services north of Midway Road.

“I’m quite comfortable putting a line at Midway Road,” Berger said.
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Port St. Lucie Civic Center

Mayor Patricia Christensen called it the “beginning of a new era.”

Since its opening, though, the $25 million facility has had more success as a recreation center than as the economic anchor of a burgeoning “downtown” in a city built without one.

Its surrounding streets, with names such as Progress Lane and Main Street, are flanked by empty fields.

Its rental facilities have been used 180 times. Rental rates were cut in half late last month.

“The whole idea for this was to stimulate the development of a downtown and obviously the economy has had an effect on that,” said Chuck Proulx, the city’s parks and recreation director.
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TALLAHASSEE — Two safeguards on a secretive process that turns tax dollars into cash incentives for private corporations were quietly removed in the final days of the 2009 legislative session to help a Jupiter Island investment manager quickly secure $20 million for his digital animation company.

An amendment gave Gov. Charlie Crist’s office, which helped craft the language, sole authority to award $42 million in economic development money. As a result, nine companies, each identified only by a code name, were awarded shares of the money within a week this summer. One $7.4 million project in Taylor County was never discussed in public.

Nearly half of the summer’s total went to Project Bumblebee — a proposal from John Textor, who is targeting Port St. Lucie for a spinoff of Digital Domain, a visual effects company he owns with Hollywood blockbuster producer Michael Bay.

Textor has promised that the spinoff, Wyndcrest Holdings, will create 500 jobs by 2014, and the recession-ravaged city is considering a separate incentive package worth $10 million in cash, land in Tradition and additional stimulus money from the city and St. Lucie County for a building.

But while the city considers its offer, the last-minute state budget amendment has already benefited the election campaigns of Crist and state Reps. Kevin Ambler, R-Tampa, and David Rivera, R-Miami, whose support was critical for the amendment.

Just days after the legislative session in May, which ran into overtime as lawmakers squabbled over the budget, Textor gave $5,000 to the Republican Party of Florida’s federal campaign account to help Crist, who has raised more than $6 million for his U.S. Senate race next year.

In June, Textor gathered $2,000 in donations for Ambler and $1,500 for Rivera. Textor also helped arrange for former Miami Dolphins quarterback Dan Marino, one of Textor’s business partners, to attend Ambler’s kickoff fund-raiser last month for Ambler’s state Senate campaign. Textor said he hopes to host a fund-raiser for Ambler in Palm Beach County. (more…)

PORT ST. LUCIE — Motorists should expect slight delays from periodic lane closures on a half-mile section of Becker Road being widened from two to four lanes.

The road will remain open as the city continues the widening project from Paley Court to the interchange at Florida’s Turnpike beginning Monday for the next six months, according to Jim Angstadt, a civil engineer with the city. (more…)

PORT ST. LUCIE Despite final pleas from residents to keep taxes flat, the City Council Monday night voted 4-1 to an 11 percent increase in the property tax rate.

The new tax rate, $4.68 per $1,000 of taxable value, will go into effect Oct. 1.

Vice Mayor Jack Kelly was the lone vote against the increase. Also, the council unanimously agreed to approve a 2009-2010 $431 million budget.

“This 11 percent increase is a compromise,” City Councilwoman Michelle Berger told residents in a packed chambers, noting that she and Kelly tried for a zero increase but could not get support from other council members.
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PORT ST. LUCIE — Prevention, not treatment, of swine flu is what people should be thinking about now, according to the health officials and doctors who spoke Thursday at a town hall meeting about the H1N1 virus.

A couple dozen people showed up at Port St. Lucie’s Civic Center, most with questions and many armed with antibacterial sanitizing gels. Concerns about the severity of the H1N1 virus as well as side effects of the vaccine expected to be distributed beginning next month dominated the question and answer session. (more…)

The medical clinic business is booming.

An emergency care clinic in St. Lucie West owned by Martin Memorial Health Systems saw 380 patients in its first week. The clinic, which opened Sept. 1, had an average of 48 patients per day, said Scott Samples, a hospital spokesman.

Located at the health system’s existing facility at 1095 N.W. St. Lucie West Blvd., the clinic is about 9,100 square feet with 12 beds. It is open 24 hours a day, seven days a week. (more…)

Martin Memorial Health Systems can build an 80-bed hospital in Tradition, a state administrative law judge has ruled.

The ruling, released late Friday by Judge J.D. Parrish, puts Martin Memorial a step closer to building a hospital to serve the communities in sprawling western St. Lucie County.

“We’re very excited about the news,” said Mark Robitaille, Martin Memorial’s president and chief executive officer. “It’s been a long journey to get to this point.”

Martin Memorial received permission from the state two years ago to build a hospital in Tradition. Hospital officials argued that it was needed because of St. Lucie’s rapid growth and the distance from western communities to the county’s existing hospitals, Lawnwood Regional Medical Center & Heart Institute in Fort Pierce and St. Lucie Medical Center in eastern Port St. Lucie. (more…)

A creative technology investment company planning to build a digital production studio in Port St. Lucie already is recruiting a senior management team and will soon start a second phase of recruiting for other positions.

The second-phase positions will be focused on development, storytelling, animation and production.

The company plans to build a digital production studio in Port St. Lucie that could bring at least 500 jobs and a $50 million capital investment to a county struggling with a 14.1 percent jobless rate.

Hobe Sound-based Wyndcrest Holdings LLC — which focuses on entertainment, telecommunications and Internet technology — announced Thursday its plans for a 150,000-square-foot facility that will include artist studios, office suites, screening theaters, software design studios and community access areas. (more…)